Reading Memories
by The Reader of Words
Summary: "Cloud Strife knew very well he was not right in the head, thank you very much. He also knew what to do, and who to ask. Trouble was sorting himself out enough to actually ask Vincent Valentine to help him with what he viewed as an embarrassing handicap." Oneshot for now, may become chaptered if I get enough people asking. If anyone even does. Otherwise, enjoy my ramblings.


**Hello, dear Readers. I have another story here, and am going to be adding more as the whims beat me. **

**Summary goes thusly: Cloud, after the Trauma Conga Line he endured, is, not to put too fine a point on it., messed up in the head. His memories are scrambled as I like my eggs, which is very. He mostly got his memories from Zack, hence why he thought he was a First Class Hot-shot. It takes him, from what I can gather safely from Advent Children, somewhere in the ballpark of two years to screw his head on in the right manner, not necessarily straight. We're going to say that, here, he only got the memories from his time in Shinra onwards. He only knows he's form Nibelheim because that's what Tifa told him, the slight drawling accent he gets when he's focusing on the past, and his earliest, clearest memory is the day Sephiroth threw his tantrum there. **

**So, he really doesn't know this one thing. And to get past this daunting obsicale, he very much needs to know it. **

**WARNINGS: Um, some swearing, Cloud feels, Nibelheim Villager sans Cloud's Mom & Tifa bashing, longwindedness, un-Beta-tested, so possible mistakes. **

**IF YOU SEE ANY WORDS TOGETHER (likethis), OR SOMETHING IS MISPELLED, OR GRAMMER IS INCORRECT, PLEASE TELL ME. MY INNER PERFECTIONIST DEMANDS OF ME PERFECTION.**

**On to the Story, my fellow Readers! Onward, to the glory that is the written word! Behold, the majesty that is-!**

~O~O~O~

Despite what his friends thought, Cloud Strife did indeed know how messed up his head was. He knew perfectly well he wasn't all there, and thanks to the generosity of Hojo, likely he never would be. It was just one more reason to hate the mad scientist/professor. Like there weren't enough already.

Another was that, although he'd gotten several memories back, he did not have them all. He never would, he knew. He'd gotten flashes of Tifa, from their childhood. Those were like looking through opaque glass, and they were the clearest. Otherwise, he got feelings, impressions. Mostly of feeling very tiny, helpless anger, a persistent, baseless shame he could make no sense of. And an aching, painful longing. For what, he didn't know. He experienced the last around Tifa mostly, and unconsciously avoided her to avoid it. Didn't realize until she all but shoved his face in it, during the fight with the Remnants.

His absolute clearest memory, though, excluding all the painfully clear ones that were Zack's, was of the Nibelheim Massacre. It might've officially been called an Incident, but they could kiss his white country ass. That had been a capitol M Massacre. Sephiroth's psychotic breakdown killed his home town but for Tifa, and led to Zack's death. Not that he shed a tear for anyone but his best friend and Ma. If Sephiroth had left his mother alive, he'd have shaken the man's hand.

The things they'd done, and things they'd _said,_

_how the cold, indifferent gazes ignited a vague, confused shame he could put no name to_

_how, when the winter got so terribly fierce, he and his mother had to fend for themselves_

_how, when his mother fell ill, he'd been on his own in aiding her, but for the girl with sherry wine eyes_

_how the bullying made his fists clench in impotent anger_

_how the mocking made his teeth grit for the blows he learned to expect_

_how the name-calling made his muscles tense for the weary brawls _

_how leaving for Shin-ra was only part of the reason, the other being to get the hell away from it all before he _snapped

and regardless of what anyone thought, he mourned only his mother and friend.

But there was one thing he wanted, in that jumble of memories, to get back. A thing his Ma had painstakingly given him, a thing a great deal of the people around him took for granted. He was sure Vincent, at least, had noticed, though the dour man said nothing. Aerith certainly had, and when he'd explained to the ghost of her months later, something in her soft, ethereal green eyes had seemed to grow heavier.

Cloud relied heavily on Zack's memories for it, though he knew he ought to be doing his level best to separate himself from his dear friend. He needed to solve this problem, and he needed someone who'd be quiet, discreet, about it. Which brought him to the present.

Tifa was out, because of the confusing tangle of feelings and knots of memories that tripped his thoughts over each other in her presence. Barret was out, because while he was proud to call the boisterous man friend, discreet he was not. Cid was out, because they didn't really meet up enough and while Cloud knew he'd be discreet, it just wasn't something he wished to share with the foul-mouthed pilot. Yuffie was out for obvious reasons. Red XII, or Nanaki, was not an option to begin with, never mind one to be discarded.

He'd ask Rufus Shin-ra and his Turks when the sun went cold. He didn't feel comfortable enough to ask a stranger, and Aerith was dead. Which left only one option. He felt surprisingly little trepidation going to ask this of the reclusive man, but beggers can't be choosers, and he wanted himself sorted out poste-haste.

Cloud Strife needed to ask Vincent Valentine if the latter would please teach the former how to read and write.

~O~O~O~

**Did I do post-AC Cloud any justice? Disservice? I know I wasn't spot-on. Was I?**

**To explain, this is a bunny that snuggled up to me out of nowhere, and I just had to write it. It was inspired by the story After the 5th Act****, by ****_Eriol-sama_****, chapter 2, wherein it's brought up that, really, Nibelheim is in the, excuse my language, ass-end of nowhere. Not even really qualified to be a village, barely enough to be on a map. I don't know if it's true or not, and anyone is welcome to, with hard fact backing them up, tell me. For the purpose of this bunny, it's true. Thus, it'd be no surprise if, as said in that chapter, it was only the Mayor's wife who taught classes three days a week. Never mind that that stories Cloud(s) never went to them, relying on his Ma. **

**Anyhoo, review, tell me your opinions, what you liked, what you don't like, and tell me if I should keep going with this. If anyone wants this to go past one chapter, I'mma need ideas, and an end goal, cuz if I don't get those, this'll be a oneshot, because I got no freaking clue where this is going, if going anywhere it is. **


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